Balkan Leaders Again Promise To Carry Out Accord on Bosnia

By STEVEN ERLANGER

Published: March 19, 1996

GENEVA, March 18—
After eight hours of meetings today with Secretary of State Warren Christopher and a team of European diplomats, three top Balkan leaders agreed, once again but in more detail than before, to live up to their obligations under the Dayton accords.

In a process that American officials described as both frustrating and intricate, the leaders agreed to hand over some officers for questioning regarding war crimes, to restore air and rail links and to release the last 219 prisoners of war who were to have been set free on Jan. 19. They also agreed to improve freedom of movement and freedom of association before elections, which are scheduled for September, and to broaden the access of the press.

The Americans summoned the Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, the Croatian President, Franjo Tudjman, and Bosnia's Acting President, Ejup Ganic, to Geneva for the meeting to follow up the Feb. 18 crisis meeting in Rome, which was called when it appeared that the civilian side of the Dayton accord was crumbling.

Mr. Christopher called today "an important day" in a "step-by-step process" to insure that peace has a chance to take hold in a Bosnia that has been ravaged and traumatized by a vicious war. The fighting was brought to an end by the Dayton accords and the introduction of some 60,000 NATO troops to enforce the peace.

"The basic commitment is there," Mr. Christopher said, "and we'll go on reminding the parties of their commitments."

Mr. Christopher announced that NATO troops would step up their patrols in Sarajevo and its suburbs to try to bring calm to the region. For nearly a week, the area has been racked by outbreaks of burning and looting.

The violence and arson in Serbian-held neighborhoods and suburbs being turned over to the Muslim-Croat federation came from many sides -- from Bosnian Serbs trying to urge others to join them in fleeing, from Bosnian Serbs who wanted to insure their homes would not be occupied by Muslims, and by Muslims moving in who wanted to terrorize the Serbs who remained. Grbavica, the last neighborhood to be handed over, will come under the Muslim-Croat federation's rule on Tuesday.

American commanders of NATO had been reluctant to take over police functions, even temporarily, for fear of overstepping the bounds of their mission. In the meantime, senior American officials said today that the effect of the unchecked vandalism was to undermine confidence in the idea of a Sarajevo where Muslims, Croats and Serbs could live together in harmony.

They said that Serbian forces in the neighborhoods and suburbs fled faster than had been expected by Carl Bildt, who is in charge of putting the civilian side of the accord into effect, and that Muslim-dominated police forces, set up to reflect the original ethnic makeup of the areas, were too slow to move in and too reluctant to arrest fellow Muslims when they were the culprits.

But Mr. Bildt said he hoped that the Serbs of Sarajevo would regain the confidence to return to their homes during the months before the elections.

"My main worry," he said, "is that the forces of ethnic separation still are far stronger than the forces of ethnic reintegration."

The effort to persuade the Bosnians to live up to their promises will take a regular and consistent effort by Mr. Christopher and the American officials responsible, they said, predicting nearly monthly compliance meetings with the Balkan leaders to try to insure that the civilian side of the Dayton accords does not collapse.

"It's not collapsing, but it's a mess," a senior American official said, describing intense mistrust among the Serbs, Muslims and Croats. "We're trying to establish a foundation and give them the tools. But we can't teach them to be democrats in six months, and they finally have to be responsible for what happens."

Mr. Milosevic was here representing the Bosnian Serbs, as he did in Dayton during those peace talks. American officials were most insistent that he agree to hand over to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague two Bosnian Serbs wanted for questioning in the killing of some 1,200 Muslims in Srebrenica. The two, Drazen Erdemovic and Radoslav Kremenovic, are not among the 54 individuals so far indicted by the tribunal.

Mr. Milosevic agreed to send the men to the tribunal before the end of the month. They may be indicted after questioning, officials said. But they noted that, as Bosnian Serbs, they are not citizens of Mr. Milosevic's republic, and that he is not setting a precedent of handing over indicted Serbs.

Still, American officials insisted that Mr. Christopher left the meetings "with the expectation" that Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, the indicted Bosnian Serb leaders, will also be handed over in time.

Mr. Tudjman agreed that Tihomir Blaskic, an indicted Bosnian Croat General, would "submit himself" to the tribunal by the end of the month. He is wanted for involvement in the deaths of Muslims near Vitez in central Bosnia in 1993. No Muslims have thus far been indicted by the tribunal.

American officials said the agreement by Mr. Tudjman was an important step in the handing over of indicted war criminals. They also said that Mr. Ganic, representing President Alija Izetbegovic, who is recovering from a heart attack, had once more promised that all foreign volunteers, many of them Iranian, would leave Bosnia. But once again, there was no firm date set, although American officials said that the number of foreigners has dropped to 100 to 150, and that many of them may have married Bosnian women and therefore became Bosnian citizens.

The United States Senate has made the release of $200 million in civilian aid dependent on the exit of all foreign forces from Bosnia, and American officials said they told Mr. Ganic that it was time for him to deliver.

The Americans also pushed to establish a better environment for elections in September, getting new commitments to allow refugees, including ethnic Serbs who fled the Krajina region of Croatia, to go home; to allow all parties the right to get licenses to open newspapers or radio or television stations, and in general to allow freedom of movement across ethnic and state lines.

The Americans and Mr. Bildt also pushed Mr. Tudjman to make the Muslim-Croat federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina more concrete, by finally unifying the city of Mostar; setting up all cantons and making them operative in a multiethnic way; unifying police, customs and tax systems, and reorganizing the authorities in Sarajevo.

A 12-point agreement reached today between Bosnian and Croatian leaders setting out their commitments also warned that international construction aid would only be provided if the federation agreements were put into effect.

Compliance by the three parties with the Dayton accords will be reviewed in a more complete fashion at a meeting of Foreign Ministers in Moscow on Saturday. Russian officials complained about today's meeting, sending only a low-level diplomat based here as an observer.